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Monday, March 5, 2012

Revelations

[Updated April 30, 2013]

Revelations brings us front and center to a critical
issue: the extent to which Angel is responsible for the crimes of Angelus
(consistent with my posts to date, I’m using the name Angel to refer to him
with the soul, Angelus without). Xander and Buffy take different sides of this
debate; complicating the picture is the bias each has because of Buffy’s
relationship with Angel. He’s jealous, she’s in love.

I want to put aside the bias problems for purposes of thinking about this
issue. Frankly, it’s a distraction from the merits. However, I also want to
hold off on the merits too until we get to Amends.
What I’m going to do here is analyze the actions of Buffy on the one hand, and
Xander and Faith on the other. In each case I’ll simply assume for the sake of
argument that they’re right in their contradictory views of Angel.

Buffy seems to view the presence or absence of the soul is a matter of essence. By that I mean that she sees the presence of the soul as marking the
real, true essence of a person. It’s a fixed property which defines the very
meaning of what a “person” is. She uses this as a dividing line – souled beings
are generally for the human world to deal with (except when they access the supernatural
in some way), while the unsouled are the province of the Slayer. Her viewpoint
on this will remain consistent throughout the series.

This is a very interesting position for her to hold, and I’m going to
discuss it more when I get to Amends.For now I’ll just note her position and move
on to evaluating her actions on that basis.

When Buffy sees Angel with his soul restored, that makes him immediately
similar to other real human beings in her eyes, and therefore not a creature to
be slain unless he, with the soul,
commits some act to deserve that (as Mrs. Post does here). Unlike other
vampires, she wouldn’t slay him on sight. He’s rather in a class similar to Oz
in that he’s capable of evil but also able to control himself.

If you see the “soul canon” (as it’s called in fandom) this way, Buffy’s
decision not to hold Angel responsible for the crimes of Angelus makes good
sense. If the soul is an essential component of personhood, then Angel can’t be
held morally responsible for what Angelus did in its absence. Given Buffy’s
understanding of the world, keeping Angel alive after his return was the
morally correct action.

Of course, that’s only one part of the criticism of her actions. The
other part is her concealment of Angel’s return. She’s on much shakier ground
there. From the perspective solely of the Slayer, it’s plausible to argue that
she had no duty to tell Willow or Xander about his return. The Slayer is the
one who ultimately has to make the call to slay or not, so they don’t have any
right to demand that she do so.

But having no right to command her to slay isn’t the same as having no
interest. As Cordy puts it, “Last time around, Angel barely laid a hand on
Buffy. He was *way* more interested in killing her friends.” While this is
arguable, there’s some truth to it. Angelus did try to kill Willow in Innocence and Xander in BB&B. Cordy was never at any real
risk, but her point stands. The best we can say for Buffy-as-Slayer is that she
was taking upon herself a responsibility similar to that which she took when
she was unable to kill Angelus in Innocence.
The blood of any future deaths would be on her. It’s hardly surprising that
those at risk might take a dim view of that without further evidence (which we
get later on when Angel saves Willow from Mrs. Post).

Now let’s look at it purely as a matter of friendship. I think we can see
Xander’s Lie still working its poison here. From Buffy’s perspective, Xander
and Willow wanted her to kill Angel in Becoming.
She had no reason to think they’d react any differently now – Xander’s and
Cordelia’s statements in Dead Man’s Party
confirmed this – and in fact Xander’s reaction here was exactly what she could
have expected. She justifiably fears that she’ll lose her friends if she does
tell them.

Buffy’s always had the propensity to keep things to herself rather than
share her feelings with others. I can personally sympathize with that, and the
circumstances of Angel’s return as she sees them certainly reinforce that
characteristic. The problem for her is that she needs her friends for her own
survival sometimes, and for her emotional stability most of the time, and
telling them the truth is one way she gets their help and keeps their
friendship. She recognizes this in her conversation with Faith at the end:

“Faith:*I'm* on my side, (nods)
and that's enough.

Buffy:(shakes her head) Not
always.”

The parallel case of Xander and Willow hiding their own relationship
reinforces the problematic nature of concealment. We see Buffy’s guilt
reflected in the way Willow, her metaphorical spirit, reacts to kissing Xander
in the library. Willow concealed her behavior because she knew it was wrong.
Similarly, concealing Angel’s return from Willow and Xander simply reinforced
the implication that he was evil. Buffy knew this at some level; in Homecoming she told Angel that Giles and
the others “wouldn't understand that you're... better.” It made Buffy and Angel
look guilty even if they weren’t; we see this assumption at the heart of the
confrontation in the library and Giles said it plainly: “You must've known it
was wrong seeing Angel or you wouldn't have hidden it from all of us.” This inherent problem with concealment will
have a major consequence later in the season.

Buffy perhaps rightly thought she had no good option when it came to
Xander and Willow, but her relations with Xander and Willow aren’t the only
ones at issue.

Buffy’s bigger problem is with Giles. Unlike Willow and Xander, he has an
actual right to be involved in her decisions. He’s her Watcher. Angelus killed Jenny. While we never
actually saw her learn that Angelus tortured Giles, we should assume she did
because he “reminds” her of that fact after the confrontation in the library.
Moreover, Giles was not involved in Xander’s Lie, nor in the confrontations of Dead Man’s Party. Her failure to tell
him is utterly inexcusable under these circumstances. It’s hard to disagree
with Giles when he tells her “You should have told me he was alive. You didn't.
You have no respect for me, or the job I perform.” Harsh but true, and Buffy
knows it. Buffy may have demonstrated the ability to behave like an adult in Band Candy, but she completely blew it
here.

Now let’s flip sides and consider Xander’s comments and actions. Xander
also takes an essentialist view of Angel, but he reverses the essential
feature. For Xander the critical fact is that Angel is a vampire. He’s had this
attitude from the beginning: “At the end of the day, I pretty much think you're
a vampire.” (Prophecy Girl.) For
Xander, it appears that the soul is not much more than a trigger guard on a
weapon, capable of being removed at any time.

Xander therefore sees himself as
justified in “judge shopping” when he urges Faith to slay Angel. The problem
here might be obvious from my use of the term “judge shopping”. In the legal
world, this term refers to a lawyer or client who doesn’t like the ruling by
one judge so tries to get a “better” ruling from another. For obvious reasons,
this isn’t allowed.

It won’t do to argue that Faith
is a Slayer and should get to make her own independent decision whether to slay
Angel. There are three massive problems with this. First, even if we accept
Xander’s view of Angel, as I’ve done here for purposes of argument, the
situation is very complicated. Faith doesn’t know any of the background, and Xander doesn’t tell her. What he’s doing
here is asking a judge to decide at the same time that he’s withholding key
facts. That amounts to judicial (attempted) murder.

Second, by sending Faith after
Angel, Xander pitted Slayer against Slayer, in a potentially disastrous fight.
Though they escaped the fight without mutual physical injury, Xander’s conduct
drove a wedge between the two Slayers which may have future consequences (and
see below). Buffy was possibly wrong to conceal the facts from Faith, Willow
and Xander, but Xander’s behavior made it much more difficult for Buffy to make
things right with Faith.

Third, by talking to Faith on his
own he bypassed Giles. If Buffy was wrong in failing to consult Giles about
Angel’s return, then it’s impossible to excuse Xander for going behind Giles’
back. And note that by lying to Faith, Xander actually enabled the real villain
to seize the glove and try to do what he only feared from Angel: to kill them
all.

Xander’s fundamental problem is
that he wants to be the General but he’s not. It’s that attitude which led to
his Lie in Becoming 2. In both cases,
Buffy and Giles – the ones in charge – rejected his position and he tried to
subvert their decision.

That wasn’t Xander’s only fault
in this episode. The other was his personal attack on Buffy in the library. He
never even attempted to learn the facts because he’d prejudged the case. He
wasn’t making a rational argument about the danger Angel posed so much as he
was self-righteously criticizing Buffy for her failure to do her duty as the
Slayer: “I think you're harboring a vicious killer.”; “For Angel to go psycho
again the next time you give him a happy?” [a truly vile comment in light of
the facts]; “you just fell on his lips” [like Xander “just fell on (Willow’s)
lips”]; “Like you did last time with Ms. Calendar”; “leave us to clean up the
mess” [except for the part where he did little but lie to her and she’s the one
who had to send Angel to Hell].

Xander simply assumed his view of
the world rather than actually discuss it, and then used it as a club to beat
Buffy over the head. I consider Buffy’s willingness to accept his quasi-apology
– not “I’m sorry”, but “I leaned toward the postal” – as a remarkable
demonstration of her character.

That leaves us to consider
Faith’s actions. In one sense, she’s the flip side of Xander. Just as Xander
failed to tell Faith the information she needed to make a decision about Angel,
Faith herself recklessly headed out to slay him without even attempting to find
out. Even though Xander did tell her, rather contemptuously, that “Buffy says
he’s clean”, Faith didn’t stop to think: “Yeah, well, I say we can't afford to
find out. I say I deal with this problem right now. I say I slay.” Reckless and
irresponsible, still worse for her cavalier attitude towards Giles when she and
Xander find him unconscious in the library.

It’s also the case that Faith
feels isolated from the rest of the gang, which may have contributed to her
response to Xander. It’s hard to identify any external ground for her sense of
isolation prior to this episode. In Faith,
Hope and Trick, Xander and Willow were so intrigued by her that Buffy was
jealous, and in Beauty and the Beasts,
Homecoming and the beginning of this
episode the two slayers worked together quite well. We might suspect a
lingering sense of inadequacy from the incident with Kakistos, reinforced here
by Mrs. Post. Perhaps she also felt diminished by the fact that Buffy killed
Lagos where she had failed.

All this was undoubtedly present,
but the biggest single factor must be the fact that Buffy sees herself as “the Slayer”, implying that there’s only one, the presence of Faith notwithstanding. Buffy’s own view of herself, therefore, will inevitably generate tension with Faith and add to Faith’s sense of isolation. Buffy shut her out
regarding Angel and concealed his return, reinforced by Faith’s exclusion from
the meeting (with Mrs. Post twisting the knife). This
has to affect Faith’s sense that she doesn’t belong (h/t executrix). In truth,
there were good reasons for not telling Faith about Angel from the perspective
of the SG, but from Faith’s viewpoint it’s understandable that she’d feel left
out. Xander’s failure to tell her the whole story, which caused her to rush out
in a bad cause, certainly didn’t help her sense of confidence either. And her
trust issues were substantially exacerbated by Mrs. Post.

Learning that Buffy also hid the
truth from everyone else ought to make Faith feel less isolated, but of course
those others have a longer background with Buffy and can more easily move past
the issue. Still, Buffy did come over to apologize and Faith didn’t accept it;
she’s still alienated and we’ll see consequences from that in the future.

Revelations was the 7th episode of S3. The 7th
episode of S1 was Angel, the 7th
of S2 was Lie to Me. I’m just
sayin’…. I’ll add that the New Testament Book of Revelations did not have that
name because it revealed events in the past which had been concealed. No, it
was a prophecy – it revealed events
yet to come.

Trivia notes: (1) The episode opens with Dingoes finishing a song, the last line of which is “you know I’d never lie”. (2) Tragedy masks – what Buffy said everyone was wearing in the library – were worn by actors in ancient Greece to depict the character portrayed by the actor. (3) Faith’s description of Buffy as “Twinkie” is gay slang meaning an effeminate man. Her use of this term is very suggestive in light of Buffy’s joke in the teaser about going out with Faith. There are lots of Fuffy shippers among BtVS fans.

6 comments:

1. Perhaps when there are two Slayers, a Slayage proponent can elect either the federal or the state system. I bet Angelus automatically counts as being evil-er than $5 million so CAFA problems do not arise.2. Also, Buffy probably should have recused herself anyway.3. I'm not a Fuffy shipper because I can see Faith being really interested in that happening, Buffy not so much.

I should have mentioned Buffy's assumption that she's "the" Slayer (I noted it in FH&T) as explaining part of her decision to conceal Angel's return. That's an important part of Faith's sense of isolation.

Clearly Buffy's biased and that affected her judgment. Just as clearly, there's no way she'd let anyone else interfere (compare S5).

I'm not a Fuffy shipper myself (or any other shipper for that matter). The way I see Faith's role this year, such a ship would be very wrong. Your point is well taken on that, and the season itself gives good reasons for Buffy's attitude.

Personally, I can't like Xander until about series 4. He consistently attacks Buffy with regards to Angel and takes the moral high ground without knowing all the facts, and every single time I wish she would just sit him down and explain everything. That or, y'know, just punch him in the face.It's definitely interesting to evaluate this along the lines of Xander as her metaphorical heart, and thus all of it as her internal conflict, but, probably because I ALWAYS seem to side with Buffy, it always feels like it's taken a bit too far. As I say, I'm fine with his character later on in the series, but IMHO right now so much shit goes down that could all be pinned on his ill-informed and unjustified actions/opinions.

First time poster. I wandered over here from TV Club. I'm on my first watch-through of BtVS and am reading their writeups as I go (and your insightful comments there led me here, where I check out your analyses as well).

Anyway, XANDER. I don't know. As much as I appreciate that his initial reaction to Angel was an immature jealousy response ("stay away from my girl!"), as the show's narrative plays out (especially the events in the back half of season 2), Xander's negative stance toward Angel seems more than justified.His confrontation with Buffy in the library was harsh, for sure.

But he wasn't wrong.

It was wrong for Buffy to keep Angel's reappearance a secret from the group. She is being incredibly selfish and dangerously naive by keeping Angel around, since it was her affection and sexual relationship with him that brought Angelus down on all their heads and led to the terrible events of S2.If Buffy truly wanted to keep Angel safe, and all of her friends as well, her best course of action would have been to get Angel out of Sunnydale ASAP. Angel, on his own, isn't a threat. Angel + a Buffy who has unresolved affection for him = a ticking time bomb, a potential disaster.In my opinion, every one of the Scoobies is right to be horrified by her actions. Xander just said what they were all feeling about it. IMO, he wasn't wrong, just tactless.

(I say this as someone who likes Angel as a character, and who has seen AtS through several times over thanks to reruns on TNT. Angel = heckuva guy. Angel + Buffy = bad bad very not good.)

I absolutely agree that Xander has a point. They all do. Xander's the most outspoken about it, but Buffy deserves criticism.Xander might well be the wrong person to deliver it -- Giles would be better -- because it was Xander's Lie in Becoming which is the biggest reason Buffy concealed Angel's return.

I think Xander's real problem here is that he's more than just tactless. He's been tactless in the past (DMP, for example), but he goes well beyond that here when he incites Faith to kill Angel. He doesn't have any right to make that call, and that's where he goes seriously off the track in my view. Not just in doing it, but in the way he goes about it.

I agree that Angel should leave town. I didn't think so at the time, but in retrospect, I think that's right.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Myth, Metaphor & Morality

I've collected and substantially edited the original BtVS blog posts into an ebook, which is by now very significantly better than the original essays. It's available here. I continue to update the book regularly. You can get the updated version at any time by asking Amazon, though you'll lose any bookmarks or highlights if you do that.
There's also now a paperback version, available from the same link.
For links to the original posts, scroll down below.

About Me

I grew up reading all kinds of F&SF. Oddly enough, I guess, for someone with my tastes, I'd never heard of the new TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My 9 year old daughter told me about it and asked me to watch it with her.
I got hooked pretty quickly and soon moved, like most Buffy fans, to the internet for more discussion. I found a site called All Things Philosophical on Buffy, etc. and made that a home. The posts here ultimately derive from that experience, combined with re-watching the show many times. I hope everyone who reads here loves the series as much as I do.